Shooting to trump old mark

ELEVEN years after winning $US1 million off Donald Trump, unheralded Brisbane professional Stuart Deane is hoping to take cash from the world’s best golfers at the US PGA Championship.

Deane (pictured) earned entry at Quail Hollow by finishing in the top 20 at the PGA of America’s club professionals championship last month.

The 1990 Brisbane Golf Club champion played a practice round with world No.1 Dustin Johnson yesterday, but it’s not his only claim to fame.

In 2006 Deane was a shock winner of the made-for-TV Trump Million Dollar Invitational, held on a Caribbean island. Deane played 54 holes of qualifying to win a suddendeath, nine-hole shootout. So a decade before he was elected US President, Trump presented Deane with a novelty $US1 million cheque.

“I’ve still got the big cheque on my wall at home,” the 45-year-old said. “I know people who work for the Trump organisation who joke with me, ‘You’re the only one who has got a cheque from the President’.

“Mr Trump was great. I used to be able to call him on his cell phone and say G’day.

“He was incredibly gracious to me and everything I did, it was absolutely awesome.”

The prize helped finance Deane’s US PGA Tour card tilt, but injuries saw him make $36,000 from 10 events before moving into golf teaching.

He is now the director of golf coaching at the University of Texas at Arlington. This is Deane’s second appearance at the PGA Championship and his 12th Tour event.

Deane played in 2014 at Valhalla in Kentucky and last month’s Byron Nelson Classic, where he missed the cut. But Deane is hopeful he can make the cut this week.

“I’m one of 20 club pros who made it. We’re all competitors. We’ve all played PGA Tour events in the past,” he said.